One Smart Nyan-Nyan
by Miome
Summary: *Complete!* Over the years, Taitsu-kun has made thousands of nyan-nyans. It stands to reason that at least one would come out intelligent. (Fushigi Yuugi is by Watase Yuu. No profit is made by this fic.)
1. Keys

One Smart Nyan-Nyan, Part 1: 

Keys

> Over the year, Taitsu-kun has made thousands of nyan-nyans. It stands to reason that at least one would come out intelligent.

A crowd of identical blue-haired girls were clustered outside a door, saying things like "heal, heal, fix, fix" and "Come on out, Chichiri-san, we'll cure you!" Their babble grew louder and louder as they tried to out-do each other in tempting Taitsu-kun's young student to come out of his room. 

Chichiri _was_ tempted, but not to come outside. He gritted his teeth as the chatter interrupted his thoughts yet again, and reminded himself that it was impossible to actually destroy the pests. Not to mention, it would be extremely rude to his host. 

Out in the hall way, one nyan-nyan backed out of the crowd and stared at the door. She felt the strangest sensation, as if a wind were blowing in her mind. A couple other nyan-nyans looked over their shoulders at her in confusion, but turned away when she just stood doing nothing. 

Something tickled her mind as she stared at the door, and she waited patiently till it finally surfaced: the day Chichiri-sama moved in, Taitsu-kun had opened this door with a key. 

She bounced off, while her sisters pounded on the door, oblivious. She entered Taitsu-kun's workroom, and snatched the keys from their wooden peg. Then she bounded back, and edged through the crowd to the door. With much fumbling, she got the key into the lock and turned it. The weight of her sisters behind her pushed in the door, and as one they fell into the room. 

It was also as one that they flew out on an explosive wave of chi. 

It was several days later, and the nyan-nyan was extremely bored. Taitsu-kun had banished the nyan-nyans to the east wing when she found out what happened, and besides play with the others there wasn't much to do. For some reason, she just didn't feel like being around the nyan-nyans - she had found herself getting strange looks several times for saying things that the others didn't understand. 

_Mmmmmm . . . Nyan-nyan wonder if Taitsu-kun has forgiven us yet?_ She didn't receive any reply to her thought, so she ventured out of the east wing and into Taitsu-kun's workroom. The old sorceress was sitting in her regular chair, watching something in a magic mirror. 

The nyan-nyan felt another tickle and waited, till it came to her. _Taitsu-kun may still be mad at us . . . maybe we better not let her know we're here?_ The nyan-nyan nodded and crept up behind Taitsu-kun, leaning over the back of the chair to see what she was looking at. 

She frowned as she saw Chichiri-sama holding a knife point to his chest in torment. _What Chichiri-sama doing? He slip and that go in, Nyan-nyan will not be able to fix him!_

The two watched as he tried, again and again, to drive it in. Again and again he flinched away, then stared down at the knife. At last, tears streaming down his face, he threw the knife into a corner and buried his face in his arms. 

_Nyan-nyan can't stand this, but nyan-nyan can't fix!_ "Taitsu-kun!" cried the nyan-nyan. "Taitsu-kun, please heal Chichiri-sama!" 

"AAAAAAAAHH!!" screamed Taitsu-kun, leaping three feet into the air. "Nyan-nyan, you scared me! What are you doing outside the east wing? I told you to stay!" 

"Please, mistress, nyan-nyan can't heal Chichiri-sama. Please, you heal? You fix?" 

The little nyan-nyan was so agitated that Taitsu-kun put aside her irritation and said, "Yes, I will help Chichiri-san to heal." Then it hit her. "Wait, did you say you _can't_ heal?" 

"Chichiri-sama won't let nyan-nyan fix. Had to find other way." 

"Gods of earth and sky . . . you learned. You actually learned something." 

"Mistress?" said the little nyan-nyan. "Nyan-nyan make you angry?" 

"No, why?" 

"Taitsu-kun even uglier when she - _aaiiiiiieeeee!_" 

Taitsu-kun watched the nyan-nyan enter the stratosphere. "You just didn't learn enough!"


	2. Seeds

One Smart Nyan-nyan, Part 2: 

Seeds 

> There are many powerful forces in the world of Four Gods Sky & Earth, and many hazardous creatures. Yet even the gods agree there is one force that is more dangerous than all the rest - a bored nyan-nyan.

It was a sunny spring morning, and the nyan-nyan was bored. She sat on top of the courtyard wall, drumming her feet and watching Taitsu-kun's student doing something in the dirt. She had felt that now-familiar tickling and waited patiently for it to resolve, but it didn't. She found that watching Chichiri-sama made the tickling worse, but that looking away didn't help much. She decided to get up and walk it off, and leapt off the stone wall. As soon as her feet hit the ground, without any guidance from her, they carried her over to where Chichiri-sama was working. 

"Hello no da," he said, and the Nyan-nyan jumped. "What's your name na no da?" She didn't understand his question, so she remained silent. He smiled kindly and thought, _She must be shy no da._

"Oh, well. You've been watching awhile - are you curious about what I'm doing no da?" She didn't understand that either, but decided she should reply. 

"Nyan-nyan have nothing to do. Nyan-nyan bored." She tried vainly to ignore the tickling his earlier questions had evoked. "Nyan-nyan fix ground!" she cried eagerly, noticing his efforts had torn up the ground where he worked. 

"No, wait no da!" he cried frantically. "I need the ground like this, I'm planting seeds no da. Would you like to help no da?" 

By this time the tickling had become a furious itch, but something was forming. She paused, then blurted out, "What mean that word?" 

"What word no da? 

"Help." 

"Oh . . . I guess it shouldn't suprise me you don't know it no da. Help means you work with someone else to fix something no da. Right here, it means I'll go along the rows and make holes for you to drop these seeds in no da." 

The itching had eased alot, and her boredom had vanished. _Helping is more fun than fixing_, the nyan-nyan thought. She picked up the seeds and felt the tickle, but this time she knew what to do. "What kind of seeds are these?" 

"Field peas no da. Your mistress loves them, no da. You _are_ curious, aren't you, no da?" 

"Chichiri-sama, what mean 'curious'?" 


	3. Blue

One Smart Nyan-nyan, Part 3: 

Blue 

> A day outdoors helps the nyan-nyan come to terms with who she is - and isn't. Also, she gets a chance to "fix" Chichiri-sama.

"And STAY out!" shouted Taitsu-kun, booting the little nyan-nyan through the door. "Honestly, " the old sorceress said, "these nyan-nyans get more annoying every day. And when did they start asking so many questions?" 

It was good for the little nyan-nyan that Taitsu-kun didn't know that it was actually _one_ nyan-nyan asking questions. She couldn't help it, though; the tickles were coming more and more frequently, and besides asking questions was fun. 

But now the nyan-nyan was stuck outside until someone opened the door. She scuffed one slipper in the dust and tried to think of when someone might open it, when she realized Chichiri-sama had gone down to a village and would be back that evening. She nodded her head, and thought, _Nyan-nyan'll just wait for him, then._

She stared down the road for a few minutes, then began to skip about the grassy lawn, singing to herself. She played games and threw rocks in the pond, and lay back and looked at the summer clouds. 

The nyan-nyan had become skilled at entertaining herself. The other nyan-nyans had stopped playing with her altogether; whenever she was around one, she felt a pain in her chest as if she had been hit. So it was easier to be alone. 

Soon it was noon, and the nyan-nyan got hungry. She ran to the apple tree beside the house, and scrambled up the trunk. She pulled off an apple, and ate slowly, remembering. 

The nyan-nyan had wanted to eat the apples the first day they appeared on the tree, but Chichiri-sama had told her to wait. "They'll make you sick no da," he said, then added, "or at least I think they make nyan-nyans sick too no da. But if you wait a few weeks, they'll get bigger and taste better no da." 

He had turned back to the tree to inspect the apples, and said, "Yes, two weeks should do it, no da. By the way, what's your name, no da? I can't just keep calling you nyan-nyan, all the others answer to that too no da." 

Her brow had knotted in confusion, and replied, "We are nyan-nyan. You call we answer, yes?" 

"Yes," he replied, "but what do you want me to say when I call just *this* nyan-nyan?" He tapped her on the head lightly. 

"_This_ nyan-nyan?" she said, tapping her own head. "_This_ nyan-nyan," she repeated softly, and she felt as if a wind blew through her mind. She looked up at Chichiri-sama quizzically, then turned and walked away, ignoring his call to wait. 

She frowned at the memory, and looked up into the tree. _This nyan-nyan,_ she thought, and felt her heart contract like a vise. _This nyan-nyan ... not that nyan-nyan ... one nyan nyan. This is one nyan-nyan._ She felt tears on her cheeks, and lay down on a wide branch, staring through a gap at the sky. 

_All nyan-nyans are the same. This nyan-nyan is different. Why?_ She pulled forward one of her braids and looked at it thoughtfully. _This nyan-nyan's hair is blue, like the sky. Like all the other nyan-nyans. But this nyan-nyan is different._ The pain eased a little, and she thought, _Chichiri-sama asked this nyan-nyan's name. This nyan-nyan is different because it has a name. This nyan-nyan's name ... _

It was almost night when the nyan-nyan heard the jingle of Chichiri-sama's staff. She awoke with a start, and nearly fell off the branch. She clung to it, though, and expected to here Chichiri-sama begin to laugh at her scrabbling. She didn't hear any, though, and she leaped to the ground to see why. 

Chichiri-sama had his face turned away, and the nyan-nyan was shocked to see tears on his face. "What is wrong?" she cried, running up to his side. 

"Nothing, no da ... " he said, trying to turn away. 

She tilted her head and thought hard. "Chichiri-sama, how do people say that someone has said something that isn't so?" 

He stopped, and then laughed. "They say that the person has lied, no da." He grew thoughtful, and said to her, "I'm sorry, no da, I shouldn't have lied to you." 

He looked up at the stars just appearing in the sky, and said, "When I went to the village ... I didn't realize the scar would stand out so much no da. I've been around Taitsu-kun and you nyan-nyans so long I forgot how people react no da." 

"And then . . . they tried to be nice no da, but I knew where there eyes were, and I couldn't even summon up a smile. I was in the middle of a bigger group of people than I have been since I left my village, but I've never felt so alone." 

"This nyan-nyan understands." 

He turned to her, his eye widening in suprise. "What do you mean?" 

"You feel bad because you are one Chichiri-sama. Like the way this nyan-nyan feels tickles." 

"_Nani?!_" 

"This nyan-nyan is one nyan-nyan because none of the others feel the tickles that make her ask questions. She . . . I am one nyan-nyan, so I am alone." 

"I see no da. I'm sorry, nyan-nyan." 

"Blue." 

"Excuse me?" 

"This nyan-nyan's name is Blue." 

Chichiri-sama knelt and buried his face in her shoulder, shaking with sobs. She hugged him tight, and cooed the way she heard the mother pigeon in the apple tree coo to her nestlings. 

"Chichiri-sama, what if the others didn't know you were one Chichiri-sama?" 

"What do you mean no da?" 

"The scar is like my questions, right? Well, when I don't ask questions around them the other nyan-nyans are nicer to me. What if the other people couldn't see the scar?" 

He raised his head and frowned. "I won't remove this scar," he said stubbornly. 

"Blue didn't mean to suggest that. Blue - sorry, _I_ - meant that if it were there, just covered up?" 

"Well, I suppose I could wear an eyepatch no da. Though I wouldn't like being asked to sing pirate songs everywhere I went no da." 

"Nani?" 

"Never mind, no da. What did you have in mind, no da?" 

"This," she said, and cupped her hands around a glowing spark. It expanded, then flashed, and a mask dropped into her hands. 

Chichiri-sama took it, and laughed. "It's face is smiling! Blue, for me?" 

She nodded. "Try it on!" 

He put on the mask, and Blue dissolved into laughter as he morphed into a three foot chibi to match it. Taitsu-kun looked out her window and muttered, "Damn nyan-nyans," and raised one hand to cover her smile.


End file.
